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Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs

FIELD BINDWEED

Scientific Name: Convolvulus arvensis L.

Other Names: liseron des champs, European bindweed, Small-flowered morning-glory, Wild morning-glory, liseron

Family: Morning-Glory Family (Convolvulaceae)

General Description: Perennial, reproducing by seed and by an extensively spreading and very persistent, whitish underground root system.

Habitat: Field bindweed occurs throughout Ontario in cultivated fields, gardens, lawns, roadsides, and waste places.

Seedlings

  • Seedling with stem
  • Leaves alternate
  • Prominent veins present on undersurface of leaves

Stems

  • Slender
  • Smooth or pubescent or very finely hairy
  • Usually twining or curling
  • Prostrate or climbing on any nearby object

Leaves

  • Alternate (1 per node)
  • Short or long stalks
  • Very variable in form but commonly arrowhead-shaped with 2 basal lobes and smooth margins
  • Sometimes long and narrow, or broader or nearly round except for the 2 basal lobes

Flowers

  • On long stalks from axils of leaves
  • Always with a pair of small, narrow, green bracts on the flower stalk some distance below the flower
  • 5 small green sepals and a white to pinkish funnel-shaped corolla 2- 2.5 cm (4/5- 1 in.) in diameter when fully opened
  • Seedpods roundish, about 5 mm (1/5 in.) long containing 1 to 4 seeds:
    • Each about 3 mm (1/8 in.) long
    • Pear-shaped
    • 3-angled
    • 1 side rounded and with tiny greyish bumps
  • Flowers from mid-June until autumn

Often Confused With
Wild Buckwheat (Distinguished by being perennial with extensively creeping, white, cord-like fleshy roots which produce new shoots and form dense patches; by its white or pinkish funnel-shaped flowers with long stalks and the absence of ocrea)

Hedge Bindweed (Distinguished by its smaller leaves, flowers usually not over 2.5 cm (1 in.) in diameter, and the 2 small bracts near the middle of the flower stalk, these tiny bracts never enclosing the base of the flower)

Bindweed flower

Field bindweed

Field bindweed leafClick to enlarge.